Oak Park native created the role of Laura in 'Glass Menagerie'
05.10.11
When Oak Park Festival Theatre begins its run of The Glass Menagerie at Madison Street Theatre, Oct. 6, Zoe Palko, the actress playing the famously fragile Laura Wingfield, will be following some pretty big — and local — footprints.
Julie Haydon, who originated the role of Laura when the play opened on Broadway in 1945, grew up in Oak Park and River Forest.
Born on June 10, 1910 at 314 Ontario, Donella Donaldson, as she was known then, was the daughter of the publisher and editor of the Oak Leaves, Orren Donaldson. They moved around some — 156 Forest in River Forest, later 818 N. Euclid in Oak Park — until 1916 when her father sold the paper to the MacArthur brothers (Alfred and Telfer). The family moved to Hollywood, where Donaldson started a paper called the Holly Leaves (reportedly stealing the Oak Leaves' masthead) and young Donella "acquired a full-blown passion for acting," according to a July 28, 1938 Oak Leaves article titled, "Julie Haydon is Again on Cover of a Magazine" (in this case, Scribner's).
Source: Wednesday Journal